The Great Green Initiative

Y.P Singh

In today’s world, the major challenge is to overcome the problem of desertification. So, to eradicate this problem The Great Green Wall Mission is launched by the African Union in 2007. This initiative aims to restore the degraded areas of the African continent and transform lives in the poorest region, the Sahel of Africa. It is planned to construct the largest living wall on the earth which will be about 8,000 km across the whole width of the landmass.
The Great Green Wall is presently being executed in 20 countries across Africa and more than eight billion dollars have been collected to support this initiative. The drive unites African nations and global accomplices, under the authority of the African Union Commission and Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall.
Goals:
The aspiration of this drive is to reestablish 100 million ha of presently corrupted land; sequester 250 million tons of carbon and make 10 million green jobs. This will uphold networks living along the Wall to:
• Develop rich land, one of mankind’s most valuable regular resources.
• Develop financial open doors for the world’s most youthful populace.
• Develop food security for the large numbers that go hungry consistently.
• Develop environment strength in places where temperatures are rising quicker than elsewhere on Earth.
• Grow another world marvel traversing 8000 km across Africa.
Key Results of 2020:
• The Great Green Wall winds the Sahel locale from Senegal in the West to Djibouti in the East of Africa.
• A few accomplishments have been recorded in the vast majority of the GGW part states, for certain nations being more effective than others.
• While some countries began the execution of the GGW exercises as soon as 2008, others joined as late as 2014 when the GGW presentation was endorsed.
• The 11 nations chosen as mediation zones for the Great Green Wall are Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan.
• The total region of the GGW drive stretches out to 156Mha, with the largest zones situated in Niger, Mali, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
• After its launch in 2007, significant headway has been made in re-establishing the richness of Sahelian lands.

How the UNCCD is upholding the drive?
FLEUVE Project – The Local Environmental Coalition for a Green Union (2014-2018). The Global Mechanism (GM) of the UNCCD carried out a lead drive under the Great Green Wall called FLEUVE. The venture was financed by the European Commission in how much around 7,000,000 Euro and was carried out from 2014 to 19.
FLEUVE pointed toward reinforcing the limits of nearby networks to assist with supporting interests in land reclamation and set out work open doors or ‘green positions. The undertaking was driven by neighbourhood individuals themselves to fortify local resilience to land debasement, dry season and environment changeability. Mini-venture projects were executed under FLEUVE in 23 networks across five Sahel nations – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Senegal. The task was supplemented by provincial-level exercises on capacity building and the spread of good practices on economical land management and innovative financing.
The Global Mechanism of the UNCCD is likewise supporting the advancement of sustainable value chains, working with the private sector and assures to buy dry land products in the Sahel. This prompts the formation of land-based jobs for a huge number of rural women in the Sahel.

Irish Government- The Global Mechanism is at the same time carrying out a EUR 1.2 million award from the Irish Government on the side of the Great Green Wall. This work depends on two pillars:
• The elaboration of a “State of the Great Green Wall” Landmark Report, which will give a higher perspective outline and legitimate investigation to evaluate the condition of the Great Green Wall, 10 years after its launch.
• And a portfolio of transformative projects along the Great Green Wall for future donor funding.

Public Awareness Campaign-
The UNCCD has sent off a public awareness campaign on the Great Green Wall, called “Growing a World Wonder.” The mission means to help worldwide attention to the drive-in open arenas, strategy discussions, as well as media and social areas with an unmistakable view towards motivating long haul public and private interest in the drive.
The mission expects to motivate a worldwide well-known development to convey this pressing African-drove dream by 2030. It fixates on the centre account that the Great Green Wall is a critical image of trust notwithstanding the greatest difficulties looked at by humankind this century from environmental change to food security, migration and asset drove struggle. It is a convincing illustration of man and nature cooperating to make a special heritage – another world miracle for the future. The mission has effectively arrived at a huge number of individuals through mass media outreach, virtual reality, significant occasions and civil society involvement.

IN INDIAN CONTEXT
The Center is pondering an ambitious arrangement to make a 1,400km long and 5km wide green belt from Gujarat to the Delhi-Haryana line. This is motivated by Africa’s ‘Incredible Green Wall’ project. The overall goal of India’s Green Wall will be to address the increasing paces of land degradation and the east development of the Thar desert.

The green belt being arranged from Porbandar to Panipat will help in re-establishing degraded land through afforestation along with the Aravali hill range. It will likewise go about as a boundary for dust coming from the deserts in western India and Pakistan. The Aravali has been recognized as one of the critical degraded zones to be taken for greening under India’s objective to re-establish 26 million hectares (mha) of its property.
A 2016 report from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had likewise demonstrated that Delhi, Gujarat and Rajasthan had, as of now, degraded more than half of their property.
The need for and significance of the wall:
1. A legacy programme like converting such a huge tract of land as a green belt in high-intensive land-degraded states will be a great boost towards meeting India’s target.
2. The idea of forming a green belt from Porbandar to Panipat will not only help in restoring degraded land through afforestation along with the Aravali hill range that spans Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi but also act as a barrier for dust coming from the deserts in western India and Pakistan.
3. The Aravalli range, which separates western India’s Thar desert from the relatively green plains to its east, has lost so much green cover that it is losing its ability to act as a natural barrier against the heat and dust that blows in from the west. The greener it remains, say, ecologists, the less likely that the desert will expand into the rest of the Indian landmass.